Convention
by Revanche
Summary: Tony, Kate, and the difference between love and war.


Title: Convention   
Author: Revanche   
Disclaimer: Navy NCIS is owned by CBS, or at least TPTB.  
Rating: R   
Feedback: Would be much appreciated.  
Spoilers: I don't think there are any, really.  
Notes: Many thanks to She who said it was worth posting. 

Tony, Kate, and the difference between love and war.

xxxxx

Lights flicker in the distance, waver in and out. The city at night, neon and cars speeding past at eighty miles per hour, so close that the breeze threatens to tug the walkers into the street, tug them into the road. Neon, hot reds and greens and blues, burning with hallucinogenic clarity down the street, blurring into the not-quite-darkness of night. Air heavy with life, not crackling, not vibrating. It's a slow, heavy hum, a weight. It only looks like life. They're not having fun. They speed past in their cars, heading for live neon sanctuary, streamlined and aerodynamic and all secretly hoping to crash, to burn out on the highway, foreign metal and smoke twisting the air. Sirens would wail and a rain would start to fall, a soft mist twining around the edges, masking it all in dreamlike intensity.

Or maybe he's just cynical. After all, it's been a long day, hard case, and his eyes are gritty, dry. He'd hate this work if he didn't like it so much, didn't rely on the adrenaline, the sudden simplicity of a world reduced to good and bad, two guns, life and death. If he didn't rely on the chase and the hunt. But this case has been different. There was no thrill to this ending, no triumphant music as the calvary rode in. Just three jet-lagged agents, a dead little girl, and an unwashed man curled in the corner, his elbows dirty and his hair unkempt. Hadn't even gotten to shoot the bastard, just cuffed him under a cold blue stare, like Gibbs hadn't wanted to do the same thing. Like his gaze didn't keep dropping to the gun in Gibbs' hand, just in case, looking for the slight movement that would make this all worthwhile and would damn them to a month of paperwork and probably another year of routine desk-jockeying. And Kate just standing there, like none of this really mattered. Like they were in Ducky's lab or maybe like this was a movie. Or like it was a test and she was trying to prove something. Big girls don't cry.

She didn't, and he suddenly hates her for that, for standing there in her nearly-flat shoes, one tiny act of rebellion against fieldwork's anti-fashion necessities. For standing there and watching, for reciting the worn Miranda words like an old childhood prayer, now I lay me down to sleep. Like it didn't mean anything at all. He hates her for expressing absolutely nothing. For being dead. For being better. Like this is only a job to her, nothing more than a job, and like she doesn't live and breath with the same intensity that he does, that he knows Gibbs does. And maybe she doesn't. Maybe it's just a paycheck and a way to impress her family at bimonthly Sunday dinners. After all, she lost her last job because she was sleeping around. And it's not that he blames her for that, for crossing that line, but because she still has the audacity to smirk at him, to brush her hair away from her face and look knowingly at him, to pretend that he's worse because he's never gotten caught, that she's better because she's been punished.

They cross the parking lot in silence, Gibbs leading the way. The bright lobby lights make him blink and he almost misses the plastic key tossed over Gibbs' shoulder. Kate catches the other and then Gibbs is gone without a word, without a trace, the elegant lines of the elevator doors closing behind him like the tide rushing in. He follows Kate down the hall to the stairs and tries not to be aware of her presence right in front of him, of the fact that he's breathing her recycled air. She stops in the stairwell, turns around and drops her suitcase to the floor with a metallic echo, ridiculous weight of clothes coming dangerously close to crushing his feet. She puts her hands on her hips and narrows her eyes at him. "So what is it?" she asks.

"What's what?" he says, sounding like an idiot.

"You know."

"What, that you're standing in my way?" He's tired, he thinks, or he would have come up with something better. He frowns at her, ignores her poor Magdalena pose and goes up the stairs. She lets out a deep breath, a sigh, and follows him.

"No."

"Look, Kate. Fun as guess-the-offense may be, I'm really not into word games." He shoves open the door marked three, steps onto the third floor and holds the door open for her without really thinking about it. By the time he realizes what he's doing, it's too late and she's already through. He glances at the number on his key, looks ahead. There's a window at the end of the hallway, thin white curtains drawn across the glass. He can see the city beyond and the sensation is not that of security, but of something barely restrained, about to break through.

"Ever since we got him, you've been ignoring me." Like she wants him to pay attention, to shower her with remarks which she'll immediately decry as sexist and chauvinistic. He grits his teeth, feeling dizzy with lack of sleep and the aftermath of their entirely unheroic rescue.

"Thought you'd be grateful," he says.

She frowns. "Well, I am, but I'm wondering if hell's frozen over."

"Why? You going on a date?"

She rolls her eyes. "A little artist has all the tragic unhappiness and the sorrows of a great artist and he is not a great artist," she says, like she's quoting something, and she probably is. He's tired of this, tired of her games and her pretensions. It's too late for literature and dry witticisms.

"What the hell does that mean?" he asks, staring at the faux wood-grain of the door, unwilling to look at her because he doesn't want to know what he would do if he had to see her face right now, the look in her eyes.

She sighs, a worn, stale breath of air in the hallway. He becomes aware of soft classical music, tinny and cheap, being piped through invisible speakers. "You're not Gibbs."

"Thanks for the insight, Kate. What the hell does it mean?" he repeats.

"At the crime scene, you were pretending," she says, like it's some revelation, an incredible insight. Should he fall on his knees, then, beg her forgiveness and promise to be a real boy in the future?

"Pretending what?"

"That you wanted to kill him." Satisfaction in her voice, now that she's delivered the killing blow, the final word, or whatever this is supposed to be. He snorts with derision, amusement, sarcasm.

"Gibbs?"

"Adams," she says flatly.

He raises his eyebrows, feeling her gaze on his back. Knowing she's looking for a weakness, something to attack. Thinking that it was so much easier when she wasn't here. "That wasn't pretending."

"Come on, Dinozzo," she says, and the exasperation in her tone is almost familiar, just for a second. "I watched it fall apart the minute Gibbs looked in the other direction."

"What are you saying, then, Kate? That I wanna be Gibbs?"

"Yeah," she says. "And that you're failing miserably."

He dares not clench his hands into fists, dares not give her that much. "Hate to break it to you, but you're wrong."

"It was my profile that led us to him." A non-sequitur, but he knows what she's implying.

"And that's relevant how? Why would I want to be Gibbs, Kate?" Aside from the obvious, he thinks, and wonders how she can accuse him of that.

"Because he knows what he's doing. Because this is important to him. Because unlike some people, he has a purpose in life." Her tone grows almost reverential and she makes a deliberate effort to flatten it, to dull it, by the end.

"You sleeping with him or something?" he asks, sliding the key into the lock. The light stays red. He's run it through upside down. He tries it again.

"No," she says. "Are you?"

The door unlocks and he twists the knob, tosses his bag onto the floor before turning on her. "Isn't that your signature move?"

"Damn it, Tony, I'm not trying to make this personal. I'm just saying that it's dangerous." She's backpedaling, now, trying to make this all okay. Like hell. And he says as much.

"Oh, you're concerned about my safety?" he asks, his voice low and sharp.

"Yeah," she says, crossing her arms. "I'm concerned because it affects the team."

"No, you're not," he says. "You're jealous."

"Of what?" she asks, sounding incredulous.

"Knowing what it's like to care." Too poetic, too dramatic, too much of a generalization, especially for this late at night. He wonders if she'll notice.

"Oh, I know what it's like to care. I just don't know what it's like to be obsessed." She scowls, her hands on her hips. He wonders if she ever snuck out at night, if she waited until her parents were asleep and then shimmied down the drainpipe, all hairspray and stolen cigarettes.

"Obsessed?" he says. "There's a difference between obsession and human emotion. You might want to try it sometime."

She takes a step closer, her eyes dark. "Oh, believe me. I'm feeling it right now."

"What, now you're angry?" he asks. "Does it bother you, Kate, or does it scare you?" Scare you like being alive scares you, he doesn't say, but it's obvious. Her hands clamp across his wrists, sharp manicured nails pressing against his veins.

"Shut. Up."

He laughs. "Such a wonder with words, too. Don't start games if you can't play, Katie."

"I can play," she says, and he thinks suddenly that she's going to dig her nails in, scratch out his veins and leave him bleeding to death in this rose-pattered hallway, but she shoves him against the wall, releases his arms and singes his mouth with heat and wax and an undercurrent of metal, blood or steel. And it's not like he's going to refuse, not now, and not with her. Not after what she's done. He kisses hard enough to bruise and hopes irrationally that she'll forget to cover it up. She clasps her hands around his neck as he turns them around, pushing her back to the wall and wondering how long it would take to make her human. More than one night. More time than he has. She breaks away, her breath coming hot and fast, shuddering gasps.

"I can play," she says.

And his laugh is not forced and not at all mirthful. "And damned good, too. You practice?"

Her hands press like stone into his shoulders, knives into his back, as she pulls herself up, wraps her legs around his thighs, and he wonders how likely it is that the elevator doors will open, that Gibbs will come to remind them about the flight and will find them here in the hallway. He wonders what Kate would do. Scream and wail, say that he attacked her? She smiles, smirks, lipstick smeared like fire across her mouth as she releases him. He swallows, pointedly doesn't reach up to wipe his mouth, leave stains across the sleeve of his shirt. She reaches for the zipper of his jeans and he turns, pulls them both inside his open room. Because there are limits to his exhibitionism, and he does have dignity, and he's not going to give her any opportunities, leave her any openings. She will not use this against him, though he will make certain that she lives to regret it.

She pushes the door closed and he lifts her skirt, sliding swatches of silk and nylon away as she braces herself against the wall, reflected in the closet mirror. Her teeth are sharp and jagged and his mouth is bleeding as she rocks back and forth against him, against the cheap white plaster, and he almost has time to wonder if this is still part of her game before he gasps, moans low in his throat, and she smiles, arching her back. The cross on her necklace glints in the dull light thrown off by a lamp left on to welcome the anonymous guest. The cross glints and he stumbles back, feeling something dark slither across his mind, something frightening and primal, something both predator and prey. Her eyes close dreamily, her throat exposed, and he has the sudden urge to lean forward, press bone against flesh and mark her so that she can't let this go. He tears the buttons from her shirt as she shudders against him and a siren approaches, growing louder as it passes and then fading into the distance. He wonders who's died, who's died in these moments. Died so that she might live. She rolls her head, looks up at him through a veil of dark hair.

"Never," she says and his eyes narrow as he concentrates on breathing, as he wonders how much of this she had planned, what's at stake here, really, and who's the winner. How the winner will be determined. Alpha, beta, and out. She tugs at her panties, slides her skirt back down and adjusts her shirt like nothing's happened, like absolutely nothing has happened and like she thinks she's won. "You lose," she says, and her eyes are blackened and heavy, reminding him of things he'd thought he'd forgotten. Things he'd wanted to forget. Wraiths and night terrors, freefall and the hollowness he's seen so many times in the shadows and on the street corners. Except she's not fighting for life, and neither is he, and they're supposed to be working together, part of a team, and he can't shake the feeling that he's just surrendered something vital, that he's just given away something he'll never be able to replace.

"We'll see," he manages, crossing his arms as he leans against the wall, pretending that he's cool and not shivering. She turns, opens the door and leaves, and as it clicks closed, he stares out at the windows, at the city beyond, and wonders who the hell she really is and why this feels not like conquest, but like betrayal.

xxxxx

The End.


End file.
